


Overture

by TurtleNovas



Series: Katabasis [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jealousy, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Podfic Available, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 20:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19069744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleNovas/pseuds/TurtleNovas
Summary: Dustin is so in love with Steve, it wears him like a second skin.





	Overture

**Author's Note:**

> This was keeping me up at 5am, so I decided to go ahead and write it down.
> 
> Podfic available [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432210).

“I’m so tired,” Steve says, heart dropped over a cliffside, cracked open on the jagged edge of a rocky jut, words oozing out of it like blood into the air. His eyes are hot and full of tears, and looking through them is like the oily water illusion of heat rising on the uneven asphalt in the dead of summer. He tilts his head to the side, hoping to send the moisture along his lower lids, kept in check by the sparse line of lashes, and he prays that when he blinks, the tears will be drawn back over his eyes instead of pushed out and down his cheeks. He doesn’t want to cry right now, doesn’t want Dustin to see and realize that when he says, ‘tired’, he means broken, and exhausted, and confused.

“I know,” Dustin replies, standing at Steve’s knees, looming, warm and comforting despite the lack of contact. Steve tilts his head back, looking up into Dustin’s face, and Dustin tries to smile at him. It’s soft and broken, full of all the hurt either of them can muster, bleeding out into his eyes like the artist painting it put too much water on the brush.

Dustin knows.  He sees the meaning of 'tired' in Steve's face, and he recognizes it with the intimacy of a lover.  He knows the sapping, draining loss of loving with everything there is, knows the crippling exhaustion and wary, desolate drag of surety that comes with realizing it will never be enough. He knows the feeling of looking into the face of his sun and seeing warmth, and affection, and obvious, unmet need looking back.  He bumps his knee softly against Steve's and hopes that something of comfort will transfer through the touch, because he has never had the power to soothe this wound with words.

He wonders when the world is going to stop letting Steve fall in love with people who don't think he's enough.  When it will stop giving him hope in the form of sweet nothings, and gentle touches.  When it will stop allowing him to believe lies, stop letting him fill his heart to bursting before he realizes it's poison he's pouring in.  It was enough, Dustin thinks, when it was only his first love.  Why give him another and rip the rug from under him yet again?  

Dustin has to concentrate to hold his expression soft under the nauseating bubble of frustration in his gut.  He doesn't understand how anyone could have all of Steve in the palm of their hand and decide to make a fist.  He doesn't understand how the tender weight of Steve's heart could ever be found wanting.  All he understands is the exhaustion and absolute surety writ in Steve's face, pooling as tears in his eyes, even as he tries to mask it with the tilt of his head.  He looks up at Dustin and tries to smile, knocks his knee back against Dustin's and falters a little with the knowledge that they feel the same.

Steve in love and never enough.  Dustin stood before him, just the same. 

+++

Dustin is so in love with Steve, it wears him like a second skin, holding him together and pulling his body around like a puppet on fleshy strings, influencing everything he does until it's nearly painful to look at him, but impossible to look away.

He asks Steve to be his first kiss, tripping over the speed with which he rushes to assure him he knows it means nothing, stumbling through a ramble about his nerves, and the scientific sense of gaining experience in a no pressure environment.  He's sweating a little bit, and he's talking so fast he's starting to pant between words, and it's an anxiety Steve has seen in him so many times, it's impossible to even run through a memory reel of them all in the moment.  It's endearing, and it hurts Steve like a hot knife under his ribs, jiggling around and scraping against bone until his flesh is in ribbons and his belly is warm and crushed by the bloat of blood pooling in the cavity behind it.

He's still not sure if agreeing was a mercy or a cruelty.

+++

Steve's had access to the trust fund for over a year by the time he decides to tap into it.  He's been saving it for emergencies, and he almost wants to scold himself for doing it, but in the moment, Dustin graduating high school feels like a crisis.  In the months leading up, it feels like Steve is on a steady march towards certain death, his stomach burning a hole in itself, waiting to become a grave for his heart.  Soon, Dustin will leave, and when he goes, he'll forget about Steve, and then there will be no one left in all the world who thinks Steve is worth anything at all.  

Steve drops several thousand dollars of daddy's hard won money, and it's not even on impulse.  It takes months of calls and negotiating with every antique book shop he can find before he even manages to locate a copy for sale.  At that point, he's not willing to risk haggling, and even in the weeks after he's spent the money, before it arrives, carefully packed like some sort of ancient, priceless artifact, he can't bring himself to regret the purchase.  He has to make sure that when Dustin leaves, Steve is the one he'll miss the most.  He's willing to spend to secure his place, and he's learned plenty well over the years that it's really the only way to guarantee, even though he's sure Dustin would spit poison in his efforts to disagree.

He takes it with him to the graduation party and only realizes his mistake after he walks in, bag carefully in hand, tissue paper exploding jauntily over the top like some sort of beacon, begging for the room's attention in the wake of no other presents having been brought.  Of course they want him to open it there and then, despite Steve's best efforts to shy away and say it's not such a big deal.  Dustin just looks at him with eyes like a laughing sky, and a soft, expectant smile.  Steve hands it over, embarrassed, his stomach churning violently enough that he worries he might have to rush to the bathroom at any moment.

It's a first edition, signed copy of  _The Hobbit_  in mint condition.

Dustin's hands are shaking so violently he can't even get the protective case open, and on the third try he just laughs like a whisper and says, "Probably for the best.  I'll get it out later."  He sounds weak, despite aiming for levity, and when he looks at Steve, it feels like an accusation.  Steve looks back and hopes it feels like an apology.

"Thank you," Dustin says, forgiving.

"You deserve it," Steve replies, and he thinks he might actually faint.

Later, when everyone is gone, Dustin pulls him in close, arms tight across Steve's back, and Steve wonders for a moment which one of them is supposed to be in love with the other.   

+++

"Oh," Steve says, and swallows hard around the cramping in his throat.  "That's great."  He stretches his mouth around the serrated shape of a smile, and feels his guts roll over and twist around themselves like a nest of raging snakes.  

Dustin's nervous face crumples into something tragic, and his mouth goes tight like maybe he's angry, or maybe just kind of confused.  He doesn't say anything more, and Steve can't blame him.  What is he supposed to say when Steve's being an absolute selfish piece of shit?  Even Steve isn't really sure what to say to himself, overwhelmed with the knowledge of his subhuman jealousy in the face of Dustin trying to give his heart to someone else.  Steve tries again to shape his mouth, concentrates on the agony of pressing his brows down into a gentler arc, and looks away as his shame splashes warm over his cheeks and down his neck.  He's made it clear over the years that he doesn't want a claim on this portion of Dustin's feelings.

"That's great," he says again, and it sounds like an apology, but he only manages to make it so by keeping his eyes pinned to the corner of the table.  "You deserve to be happy.  I'm glad you're finally getting the chance at it."  

Dustin, bless him, lets it go and pretends it was a suitable response.

When they go their separate ways, Dustin pulls him into a hug, hands gentle on Steve's back, pressing soft against the blade edge of his scapulae and trailing over the arcs of them like his touch could mend a broken heart.  Like he believes Steve even deserves it.  

"I'm sorry," Steve says, and tastes the fabric of Dustin's tshirt where his mouth is wedged tight against the slope of his shoulder.  Dustin hums in agreement and holds him there for another minute.  He's smiling at Steve when they finally disentangle, and it looks for all the world like Steve has taken a knife to his face.

+++

It takes three days before Steve snaps and goes out looking for someone to pick a fight with.  Dustin has  _plans_ , and Steve knows what that means, nearly bites out an answer full of thorns and venom before he catches himself and wishes he could sever his own tongue in his mouth.  Instead he says, "Okay, no worries," and, when he hangs up, his hands are shaking.  He already knows what he's going to do.  

He tells himself he's not planning it.  Tells himself he's just going to take a walk, clear his head, and maybe try to convince himself to stop being such an asshole.  He tells himself the weather is nice, and it's a perfect night for some self reflection.  Maybe the moon will show him how to be happy for Dustin and his date, since the tv and the walls of his apartment aren't helping for shit.  In reality, he's just looking for someone big enough and mad enough to put him down, because he doesn't want to be able to get back up on his own.    

Breaking his face on the edge of another man's knuckles is always a good way to get what he deserves, and god, this time he  _really fucking deserves it._

+++

Dustin knows what Steve has done from the sound of his voice alone, despite the way Steve tears his split lip back open just to try to push a smile into his voice.  He knows from two syllables, from the way the "hell" and the "oh" slip out like shards of broken glass, Steve's tongue swollen where he'd bitten it, jaw creaking and grinding from the movement, his whole head pulsing with the beat of his heart, sped to a devastating, relentless rhythm when he realizes just how bad he sounds.  

Dustin sighs, and it's worse than the crack of Steve's cheek bone under the drive of an elbow.  "Have you even put ice on it?" he asks, and Steve only barely manages to vomit on the coffee table instead of the carpet.

Dustin has already hung up by the time he recovers, and Steve feels the sob tear its way out of him, though he can't hear it over the roar of a migraine in his ears.

When Dustin has finished cleaning him up, has shoved two pain pills forcibly past Steve's broken lips, and has forced him to drink enough water to make him feel nauseated and ready to vomit again, he finally lets Steve rest.  Lets him sit forward, his head resting on Dustin's hip, knees barely touching the outsides of Dustin's legs, his hand a tender cradle for the base of Steve's skull. 

"I'm sorry," Steve rasps, too tired, and sore, and guilty to cry the way he wishes he could.  

"I know," Dustin replies, fatigued.  Steve's hand is fisted in his shirt, fingers curled tight against the soft pudge of his belly.  Dustin's tears are hot on Steve's knuckles, and they tickle as they track down onto his wrist.

"I'm sorry," he says again, because it's all he has to give.

+++

Steve doesn't drink much anymore.  Not after everything that's happened, after all they've been through, and the things he knows.  He can't risk losing himself, can't risk dulling his reflexes, or making himself stupid in the wake of consumption.  Not when he knows that monsters are real, and that they lurk underground, and around corners, and in pockets of space that can be ripped open in ceilings, and walls, and swimming pools.  Steve knows that nowhere is safe, and he knows that he has to stay sharp no matter what.  He can't afford to let the world slur and tip around him, can't risk letting his brain turn into a sloppy mush of bad choices and clumsy reflexes.  

He makes an exception the night he meets Dustin's boyfriend.  Drinks can after can of beer, and then switches to whiskey when realizes the world still isn't blurring as much as he'd like it to.  He's trying to drink until he can't see it anymore, until he forgets what it looked like for someone else's hands to be pushed up under Dustin's shirt, for a thigh to be wedged snug against Dustin's crotch.  He drinks, and he drinks, until he throws up in the sink, and then he drinks some more.  

By the time he passes out, the image of someone else's tongue in Dustin's mouth is all that's left for him to see.

When he wakes up in the morning, it's with a scrambling, sweaty sort of panic that doesn't wobble out into regret until after he's smashed the mostly empty whiskey bottle over the head of the coat rack and realized that he's alone after all.  He cuts his finger on a shard of glass and lets himself pretend he's crying over the pain of whiskey in the wound.

+++

Dustin's mostly just surprised it took his boyfriend this long to lose his patience enough to end it.  He's been half expecting it since the first date, always looking over his shoulder, ready for the other shoe to drop, even as he intentionally does nothing to ease the situation.  He's in love with Steve and he always will be.  Any relationship he has is going to have to work around that fact.  It's not ideal, but it's also not anything he's able to get past.  He'd been up front about it from the start, and the boy, bless him, had smiled and said he'd just have to try even harder to win Dustin over.  It had been sweet, and there had been moments where Dustin had almost begun to believe it was working.  

He runs his fingers over the spine of the book Steve had given him (the book that must have cost him thousands, that Dustin knows he shouldn't even be touching, because that's not how you treat precious, old things like this).   _I can handle that you're still friends with him, but I can't take it that you think about him when we're together._ Dustin huffs out a quiet rush of air that's almost a laugh.  He'd wanted to deny it, but he's never been good at lying under pressure, despite all his practice.  He'd only shrugged, and realized that he didn't even want to fight for this.  

So now it's over, and all Dustin feels is a rush of warmth, nervous and pleasant in his guts.  He's pretty sure Steve is going to be happy to hear it, and Dustin isn't even going to begrudge him the jealousy he's so often flung in Dustin's face.  He knows Steve can't help it.  Knows he's the only person who ever makes Steve feel worth anything, even if Steve can't give him the same feelings in return. 

It's a razor's edge and Dustin is happy to attempt the balancing act.  Steve needs him, and it's exhilarating.  Steve pities him, and it's agonizing.  Dustin is content to spend his whole life bleeding on that edge, if only it means having Steve in proximity, however he can get it.  Anyone else in his life will have to decide for themselves if they want to risk the damage.  Dustin is nothing but sure.

+++

Steve looks over at Dustin in the passenger's seat, head resting gently against the door to let the cool breeze rush over his face as Steve drives.  They're headed nowhere, just traversing the empty roads in and out of town as the night grows deeper, the silence between them a gentle, breathing thing, reminding Steve of all the summers before this when Dustin would sit in that seat and talk endlessly, always confident and sure of Steve's attention.  He sees Dustin in that seat at 13, socked feet up on the dash, shoes in the foot well as a compromise, babbling about the perils of the last summer before high school.  He sees him at 16, hands moving wildly around him as he rants angrily about his friends constantly teasing him for not having a girlfriend.  He sees him stooped over at 17, revisiting the topic and asking so quietly it's barely audible over the sound of the radio, turned way down, "What if I don't want a girlfriend?" 

Steve had pulled over after that one, and the conversation had ended in a hug, and lots of pretending nobody was crying.  Steve had always known before then, but that had been the first time it had actually been confirmed.  

Dustin had been even more in love with him after that.

He sees Dustin at 19, gaze trained carefully on the trees passing by as he'd mentioned how nice his boyfriend was, had said with determination, "He really likes me," and Steve had tried so hard to be supportive that his hands were cramping when he finally managed to peel them off the wheel.

He looks at him now, eyes closed as the wind pushes his hair off his face, skin bright with a fine sheen of sweat, brought out by the oppressive summer heat, still reflecting brutally off the asphalt hours after the moon as has come out to watch.  He realizes with a sort of sudden, untenable clarity that there will come a day when he won't know what Dustin looks like in that seat, because this is Dustin's last summer home, and soon he'll be gone off to grad school, and there won't be any trips back, because he'll be working in the summers, and on his breaks.  Eventually, Steve realizes, the distance will give Dustin the gift of lucidity, and he'll make a life for himself without Steve in it.  

He thinks he must've made a noise, if the scraping feeling in his throat means anything.  The way Dustin's eyes cut to him seems to confirm it, and Steve pulls off onto the shoulder, slowing to a stop, because suddenly he can't see through the haze of tears.  He closes his eyes and tries to breathe.  Tries to ignore the way Dustin's gaze feels like a knife in his belly, sawing and digging until Steve thinks his guts must be splattered all over the interior.  He opens his eyes, feels a few tears skitter down over his cheeks and into his lap.  His organs are still inside his belly, but as he looks back at Dustin, he can't help but think how nice it would be if Dustin would pull them out with his hands.  He thinks it would be a little bit lovely, to watch his insides spill out over those fingers, and to know they were safe, because Dustin loves him so.

He smiles, and it hurts.  Dustin looks at him, patient and relentless, and refuses to let him off the hook.  

Eventually, Steve kisses him, and Dustin's hands are so gentle on his face that Steve wonders if he could die for him, just to show him how wrong he knows he's been.

Dustin just smiles, bumps their noses together affectionately, and whispers, "I think you should come with me to Massachusetts." 

"I love you," Steve says, and it's as much an apology as anything Steve ever says.

"Mmhm," Dustin hums in reply.

His eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, and it makes Steve's heart trip and hammer fast, his pulse aching under his jaw.  "I'm an idiot," he mumbles, and bathes in the sweet honey of Dustin's laugh as it drips onto his skin.  

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Overture](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432210) by [TurtleNovas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleNovas/pseuds/TurtleNovas)




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